boston 2009

construction of the finish line for the marathon

well, my trip to boston is coming to a close. it has been awesome. i have had a lot on my mind recently, and it was nice to get away for a little bit and have quiet to process everything.

i humbly retract the blog i posted recently about not looking back on last summer fondly. the comment was made in relation to something specific that happened recently in my life, which gave me pause. the conversations i've had in the last week or two helped me to see last summer was exactly what i expected and for that i am grateful. i didn't know specifically what would happen. i just knew that my life would be flipped upside down and that i would be challenged in whatever way i needed to be challenged. and that i was. its taken 8 months but i feel like i have a much better perspective on things and can now look back on the whole experience with a clear head. i continue to learn so much from my experiences and am eager to embrace changes in my life.

my housemate gokce has never been to boston and before i left, she told me to take lots of pictures. i said sure. then i arrived in boston and though, that's like telling someone to go home and take pictures of the city where she grew up. what do i take pictures of? what gives boston part of its magic for me is my history here. i have a lot of good memories and why i like going to this or that place has more to do with good times i have had there rather than the physical place itself.

when i come to boston, i tend to walk everywhere. i love walking. here are some of the things i've seen in the last few days:

swan boats in the public gardens

2009 boston marathon expo

harvard square

i have been thinking a lot about walking lately for both work and personal purposes. i have been having trouble eating and sleeping recently, and with everything that has been running through my head i've also just had trouble sitting still. what has made it worse is the tapering for a race.

regardless, i did a lot of walking around boston and, always the lover of books, stopped in several bookstores to browse. at one store, i happened upon a used copy of planetwalker by john francis, the man i posted the ted video about somewhat recently. i've been reading it every chance i have gotten since. it is truly inspiring to me. i also tend to browse the travel writing sections and i picked up a copy of bill bryon's a walk in the woods and another book about a man who walked around the perimeter of ireland in one month with a fridge after making a drunken bet to a buddy one night. this common theme of books was not intentional. i was browsing for interesting things and after purchasing them i realized that everything talked about walking long distances and the experiences one has a long the way. before i found the second two books, i also saw this quote at the marathon expo:

it seemed quite fitting so i took a picture.

i came to boston to run the marathon. i finished in 3:32 and change. the time was less than one minute off my pr for this course. it ended up being a beautiful day to run though a bit chilly towards the end. i think i went out a little two fast, but my splits were pretty even so i was happy about that. i felt better the last 4 or 5 miles than i have ever felt during that stretch of this course. i ususally don't have trouble taking in water and calories, but before i was half way through the race, my stomach shut down. i didn't want to eat or drink at all. i made myself do it, but it was rough.

after the race, i met up with michael, sarah, nick and kelly. we grabbed tea at barnes & noble so we could all warm up, and then we walked from kenmore to central to grab food and a drink at the asgard. i mentioned my stomach shutting down during the race, but i also didn't feel okay to eat for a few hours afterwards. i wanted the tea, but other than water, i didn't have anything to eat until we got to the asgard. as an aside, maybe it was something in the water because i saw a lot more people puking after this race than i have ever seen before. it was weird. don't worry, i wasn't that bad off.

ironically through all of this, my legs actually felt better post marathon of that pace than they ever have. my legs weren't tender when walking afterwards at all really and i felt like i could run some more. i'm sore this morning, but it doesn't seem too bad...i also haven't tried to walk down stairs yet though.

thank you for all your good luck wishes! it was a good race.